Capturing the Moment

  We had two encounters with pods of orcas this past week as we traveled between Juneau and Sitka, Alaska. One of these encounters happened right around sunset, with the low light backlighting the blows of the big male orcas. I love seeing their 7-8ft dorsal fins straight up as they should be and not all flopped over like you see with orcas in captivity. They move so effortlessly and really seem like they know they are the true masters as the oceans' top predator.   I still haven't found a good visual way to tell between the resident pods that are here year round, and the transients that just come through on their thousand mile journeys. There are subtle differences but the biggest is in their diet. The resident pods feed only on fish, like salmon. The transient pods are the mammal eaters, so seals, sea lions, baby whales, can all be on the menu. It is pretty wild that such a top predator has never attacked a human in the wild.   Their complex communication and ...

First view of a brown bear patiently fishing   We have had a few bear sightings this summer but nothing too outstanding. Usually the bear sighting are through binoculars from the bow of the big ship. Not today. Pavlof stream seemed like the perfect bear spot when I visited earlier this summer. A short trail winds its way up along the bank of a river, past a 15ft cascading waterfall, into the huge Lake Pavlof. This trail in itself is worth the visit to Pavlof. The lake is surrounded by towering snow capped mountains and is the only place in Southeast Alaska that you can commonly see the rare Trumpeter Swan.    This trip to Pavlof would prove my earlier theories correct. The first group ashore radioed back to the ship saying they couldn't make it past the waterfall because six bears were ambling around and fishing in the river! I don't think anyone was upset that we couldn't make it to the lake. It was about as good a bear show as you can get. We added more trips asho...

Just Breaking the Water's Surface Orca    It had already been a pretty great day; snorkeling with seals, finding my first nudibranch, and watching brown bears catch and eat salmon underneath a waterfall. It would be hard to imagine how a day like this could get any better. Then it happened. Pec Fin wave    The general cry of 'orca' went through the boat from bow to stern in what seemed like a millisecond. People crowded the rails, grabbing and pointing cameras, or just pointing off in the distance where a large, dark fin would break the surface. Glassy orca bow wave    It turned out to be a large pod of orca who decided to stay with us for about twenty minutes. A couple of different times they would swim right over to and under our boat. Some seemed quite playful waving there short nubby pectoral fins in the air, while other calmly patrolled the perimeters. There seemed to be quite a bit of belly to belly swimming which led me to think...

Archidoris Montereyensis    Well, it was only a matter of time, but I finally found my first nudibranch in Alaska! I've been asking the guides every time they snorkel (which is once a week usually) to find and bring back a nudibranch to no avail. But this week I took a turn at the treasure hunt and set myself up for success by planning our snorkel for a pinnacle rock jutting out in the middle of the mouth of freshwater bay, aptly named Heidi Rock. When I first jumped in it was an underwater cacophony of colors. Sea stars, sunflower stars, sea anemones, sea urchin, flowing kelp, drifting jellies, and sea cucumbers litters the rocky underwater surface.   This snorkel spot blew all others out of the water that I've seen so far in Southeast Alaska. I had three intrepid snorkelers with me and was ecstatic that they were witnessing this cold water spectacle. We even had a few underwater swim by's from a couple of curious harbor seals.   About thirty minutes into ...

Pink Hues over South Baranof Close Encounters    It turns out that late July is a pretty good time to be in Southeast Alaska for humpback whale action. July and August mark the culmination of migrating humpbacks to the feeding grounds. The bait fish and krill are here in abundance which means so are the humpbacks. Lunge Feeding Humpbacks   After having spent many whale seasons in Hawaii, where these whales concentrate on calving and breeding instead of eating, it is wonderful to be on the flip side seeing all the different feeding behaviors. We had synchronized lunge feeding whales right next to the ship as well as a couple instances of bubble net feeding.    Guests realized how amazing an encounter these feeding behaviors were when the entire crew flooded out to see them with cameras in hand. I never knew the lunge feeding could happen so cooperatively, with two whales coming up side by side at exactly the same moment, with mouth agape and ...

 Frederick Sound is a large body of water in Alaska's inside passage which acts as a confluence zone for all the water coming in from Chatham Strait and Stephen's Passage. A lot of nutrients are swept into the area which in turn brings in the plankton, small fish, and eventually the big charismatic mega-fauna. This is why we planned a half day of cruising and looking for wildlife in Frederick Sound.     We woke up to a good sign, not so far off blows of humpbacks. Things really heated up as we left our anchorage and venture out into the sound. Humpbacks could be seen for miles around with their hot, steamy exhalations lingering in the cool Alaskan air.          Then, as hard as it might be to believe, the humpbacks were upstaged. All of a sudden on the horizon a huge dorsal fin emerged out of the water. It was a pod of orcas heading our direction! We stayed with the orcas for a good part of the morning watching them interact with the humpb...

"Glacial Grey"   All season I have been hearing stories about the infamous Baird Glacier. Apparently as recent as two years ago we were able to drop passengers off to go hike up onto the glacial ice. But as the glacier gallops backwards in its retreat, it leaves the terminal moraine buildup with an uncrossable lake between it and the ice.    The first mate on board has been trying to talk me out of schedule excursions at Baird because of the fact that to get people up to the the landing area the small boats have to navigate a flowing glacial river complete with rapids and standing waves. But I was not to be swayed so I used my power to send the ship to Baird glacier on this week's trip.    Hiking to Baird Glacier    Since this was our first time here this season a few of us jumped in a skiff early in the morning to rocket out way up the river and figure our the logistics for the day. We made it to the landing point but just beyond that...

 What do you do when you are about to jump into frigid cold waters with ice bergs and glaciers all around?....you go all out. That is what I and many of the passengers aboard our Alaska adventure cruise did last week in Glacier Bay National Park. It takes the term 'polar bear plunge' to a whole new level.    This picture also encapsulates that fun energy that seems to permeate throughout our boat from the crew to the passengers alike. I like to think that I am a small part of that reason that everyone has such an incredible adventure but being surrounded by such an amazing crew and feeding off that energy is what makes the whole experience.    If you are wondering how this plunge went, I will only say that Alaska won this round. 

Tlingit Carving Margerie Glacier    This past week was my first trip into Glacier Bay National Park. This UNESCO World Heritage site is a 5,000+ square mile national park filled with some of the best glaciers and wildlife in Southeast Alaska. Over the course of two days we had people kayaking and hiking right next to a glacier, watching bears, orcas, and humpbacks, puffins and stellar sea lions, nature walks through the mossy forest, and taking in some of the most beautiful waterways I have seen. Wild Mountain Goat Johns Hopkins Glacier   We spent some quality time looking at Margerie Glacier and Johns Hopkins Glacier from the big boat, while getting up close and personal with activities at Lamplugh Glacier. It is pretty crazy for some of the veteran crew members to see Lamplugh glacier up on dry land when just over a year ago it was a tidewater glacier, with its terminal face out into the seawater. Tufted Puffin in Flight Stellar Sea Lion Haulout ...